The two most violent gangs on the Lower Mainland have sufffered a major blow with the arrest of five high-profile gangsters linked to both the Red Scorpions and United Nations gang, police said Friday.

Supt. Doug Kiloh, head of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said both gangs have been significantly weakened by the arrests Thursday of high-level Scorpion Jarrod Bacon and UN leader Doug Vanalstine.

Bacon, his associate Wayne Scott, and Vanalstine with fellow UN gangsters Daryl Johnson and Nicholas Wester, are each charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine after getting caught in a nine-month long undercocver sting.

Bacon, Scott, Wester and Johnson were taken down at gunpoint near each's Abbotsford home Thursday. Vanalstine was arrested in Kelowna, where he has been living for the last two years.

Neither gang knew the other was negotiating with undercover police for 100 kilos of cocaine they believed was coming from a Mexican drug cartel.

"Despite previous arrests and ongoing trials, the UN gang and members of the Bacon group have continued to conduct criminal activity," Kiloh said. "CFSEU continued targeting these with the initiation of Project E-Pintle in February of 2009. The extensive undercover operation targeted the drug trafficking activities of both the Bacon group and the UN gang."

Kiloh said police were concerned about on-going violence between the gangs, but knew the way to build a case against them was through their involvement in the drug trade.

"Mr. Vanalstine and all of these individuals to support their business are ready and willing to employ violence at a number of different locations through a number of different means. I can't go into any specific evidence with respect to that," he told a news conference at CFSEU headquarters Friday.

"It is the violence - the drugs were a means for us to get at them criminally - but clearly it is the threat to public safety - clearly it is the violence of these individuals that are of concern to the police.

The two warring gangs were targeted in the undercover probe, dubbed E-Pintle.

Bacon was in the middle of a Surrey provincial court trial on 10 firearms counts when the new charge was laid against him Thursday. That trial, in which he and brother Jamie are challenging the admissibility of the evidence, is set to resume Dec. 3.

Scott has no record in B.C. according to the provincial court data base. But he is the father of Jarrod's girlfriend and the grandfather of Bacon's toddler son, the Sun has learned.

CFSEU's Sgt. Bill Whalen said Vanalstine is also now aware that there is a request from the United States to extradite him on a series of drug smuggling charges for which UN founder Clay Roueche has now pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in December. The U.S. Attorney is seeking 30 years behind bars.

Like Vanalstine, Johnson is a long-time UN member. The 31-year-old was already facing trafficking charges in Summerland when he was picked up in the conspiracy case.

Johnson was also wounded last year when another UN gang member, Duane Meyer, slashed him in the neck in a Penticton strip club. Meyer was later shot to death in Abbotsford in May 2008.

Wester has no convictions in B.C., but pleaded guilty in Spokane in November 2000 of importing marijuana into Washington state. He got an 18-month sentence.

Wester's brother Dustin was gunned down in Abbotsford in July 2008 and dropped at a gas station some distance from a marijuana grow-operation where police believe he was actually shot. No one has ever been convicted in the slaying.

The UN and the Red Scorpions are considered to be mid-level drug trafficking gangs responsible for much of the gang violence that has plagued the Lower Mainland in recent years.

But on-going criminal probes into both gangs have led to numerous arrests in recent months.

Since last spring, six Red Scorpions have been arrested and charged in the Surrey Six slayings, including Bacon's younger brother Jamie. One former associate, Dennis Karbovanec, has already pleaded guilty to three of the six executions in the Balmoral Tower in Oct. 19, 2007.

And eight members of the UN gang have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder for plotting to kill the Bacon brothers and their associates. Those charges were laid last spring after a lengthy investigation involving the CFSEU and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

All of the accused gang members remain in custody awaiting trials that will likely get underway in 2011.

kbolan@vancouversun.com

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